or think there is anything contrary to your faith in creation, for the good God has himself made all things good. What I do mean is that you use reasonably and in a balanced way the rich variety of creation which makes this world beautiful; for as the Apostle says: ‘the things that are seen are transient but the things that are unseen are eternal.’
For we are born in the present only to be reborn in the future. Our attachment, therefore, should not be to the transitory; instead, we must be intent upon the eternal. Let us constantly reflect on how divine grace has transformed our earthly natures so that we may contemplate more closely our heavenly hope. And let us attend to the words of the apostle Paul: ‘You have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. But when Christ your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.’
Note: If a reading about Cana of Galilee is required, see either alternative reading for Epiphany 2 or Tuesday after Trinity 9.
Monday after Epiphany 4
A Reading from The Revelations of Mechtild of Magdeburg also known as The Flowing Light of the Godhead
GOD
You are hunting desperately for your love.
What do you bring me, O my Queen?
SOUL
Lord, I bring you my treasure;
It is greater than the mountains,
Wider than the world,
Deeper than the ocean,
Higher than the clouds,
More glorious than the sun,
More numerous than the stars,
And it outweighs the entire earth!
GOD
O image of my Godhead,
Ennobled by my own humanity,
Adorned by my Holy Spirit,
What is your treasure called?
SOUL
Lord, it is called my heart’s desire.
I have withdrawn it from the world,
Denied it to myself or any creature.
Now I can bear it no longer,
Where, O Lord, shall I lay it?
GOD
Your heart’s desire shall you lay nowhere
But in my own Sacred Heart
And on my human breast.
There alone will you find comfort
And be embraced by my Spirit.
Tuesday after Epiphany 4
A Reading from Abandonment to Divine Providence by Jean-Pierre de Caussade
‘Jesus Christ,’ says the Apostle, ‘is the same yesterday, today and for ever.’ From the origins of the world he was, as God, the principle of the life of the righteous; from the first instant of his incarnation his humanity participated in this prerogative of his divinity. He works in us all through our life; the time which will elapse before the end of the world is but a day, and this day is filled with him. Jesus Christ has lived in the past and still lives in the present; he began in himself and continues in his saints a life that will never finish.
If the world is so incapable of understanding all that could be written of the individual life of Jesus, of his words and actions when he was on earth, if the gospel gives us only the rough sketch of a few little details of it, if that first hour of his life is so unknown and so fertile, how many gospels would have to be written to recount the history of all the moments of this mystical life of Jesus Christ which multiplies wonder infinitely and eternally, since all the aeons of time are, properly speaking, but the history of the divine action?
The Holy Spirit has set out for us in infallible and incontestable characters certain moments of this vast space of time. He has collected in the Scriptures certain drops, as it were, of this ocean. We see there the secret and unknown ways by which he caused Jesus Christ to appear in the world. We can follow the channels and veins of communication which in the midst of our confusion distinguishes the origin, the race, the genealogy of this first-born child. Of all this ocean of divine action he reveals to us but a tiny stream of water which, having reached Jesus, loses itself in the apostles and disappears in the Apocalypse, so that the history of the divine operations, in which consists the life of Jesus in holy souls until the consummation of the ages, can only be divined by our faith.
To the manifestation of the truth of God by word has succeeded the manifestation of his charity by action. The Holy Spirit carries on the work of the Saviour. While he assists the Church in the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ, he writes his own gospel, and he writes it in the hearts of the faithful. All the actions, all the moments of the saints make up the gospel of the Holy Spirit. Their holy souls are the paper, their sufferings and their actions are the ink. The Holy Spirit, with his own action for pen, writes a living gospel, but it will not be readable until the day of glory when it will be taken out of the printing press of this life and published.
Wednesday after Epiphany 4
A Reading from The Mirror of Charity by Aelred of Rievaulx
It was pride that distorted the image of God in us and led us away from God, not by means of our feet but by the desires of our hearts. Thus we return to God by following the same path, but in the opposite direction, by the exercise of these same desires; and humility renews us in the same image in which God created us. This is why St Paul calls on us to be mentally and spiritually remade, and to be clothed in the new self made in God’s image. This renewal can only come about by fulfilling the new commandment of charity given us by our Saviour, and if the mind clothes itself in charity, our distorted memory and knowledge will be given new life and new form.
How simple it is to state the new commandment, but how much it implies – the stopping of our old habits, the renewal of our inner life, the reshaping of the divine image within us. Our power to love was poisoned by the selfishness of our desires, and stifled by lust, so that it has tended always to seek the very depths of deviousness. But when charity floods the soul and warms away the numbness, love strives towards higher and more worthy objects. It puts aside the old ways and takes up a new life, and on flashing wings it dies to the highest and purest Goodness which is the source of its being.
This is what St Paul was trying to show the Athenians when he established from the books of their philosophers the existence of one God, in whom we live and move and have our being. Paul then quoted one of their own poets who said that we are God’s offspring, and in the next sentence went on to enlarge on this saying. The Apostle was not using this quotation to prove that we are of the same nature or substance as God, and therefore unchangeable, incorruptible and eternally blessed like God the Son who was born of the Father from all eternity and is equal to the Father in all things. No, St Paul uses this passage from the poet Aratus to assert that we are the offspring of God because the human soul,
